So in the course of designing a thread cabinet for my wife, I decided to use beaded shiplap for the back/front. However, as I was looking at other builds, I notice sometimes that tongue and groove is also used for the backs of cabinets, hutches, etc., the bottoms of chests (like a traditional tool chest) and so forth. This got me thinking about the question of when to use a shiplap and when to use tongue and groove.
Are there any tradeoffs that should be taken into account? Is it simply a design choice? Shiplap for thinner boards, tongue and groove for thicker? I had never thought of it nor read anything about when to use one vs. when to use another.
So what should I be thinking about when choosing?